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Hi all!
Now that Upgrade 4 is out and about in large quantities we have now discovered a few SNAFUs that happen out in the scary, real world that is home computing. Fortunately the rate of problems is extremely small and so far most are easily worked around. We've identified a few issues that have similar causes which we have clear instructions for work arounds here they are:
1. CMRT Windows customers need to re-license their original key. This is a result of improvements to the licensing system which CMBN, CMBS, and CMFB are already using. To do this launch CMRT with the Upgrade and the first time enter your Engine 4 key. Exit and then use the "Activate New Products" shortcut in your CMRT folder, then enter your Engine 3 license key. That should do the trick.
2. CMRT and CMBN MacOS customers have a similar situation as #2, however the "Activate New Products" is inside the Documents folder in their respective CM folders. For CMBN you have to go through the process described above for each of your license keys. There is no special order to follow.
3. For CMBS and CMFB customers, you need to use the Activate New Products shortcut and enter your Upgrade 4 key. If you launch the game and see a screen that says "LICENSE FAILURE: Base Game 4.0 is required." that is an indication you haven't yet gone through that procedure. Provided you had a properly functioning copy before installing the Upgrade, that should be all you need to do. If in the future you have to install from scratch on a new system you'll need to do the same procedure for both your original license key and your Upgrade 4.0 key.
4. There's always a weird one and here it is. A few Windows users are not getting "Activate New Products" shortcuts created during installation. Apparently anti-virus software is preventing the installer from doing its job. This might not be a problem right now, but it will prove to be an issue at some point in the future. The solution is to create your own shortcut using the following steps:
Disable your anti-virus software before you do anything. Go to your Desktop, right click on the Desktop itself, select NEW->SHORTCUT, use BROWSE to locate the CM EXE that you are trying to fix. The location is then written out. After it type in a single space and then paste this:

-showui

Click NEXT and give your new Shortcut a name (doesn't matter what). Confirm that and you're done. Double click on the new Shortcut and you should be prompted to license whatever it is you need to license.
At this time we have not identified any issues that have not been worked around. Let's hope it stays that way
Steve

We've reorganized our Combat Mission Forums to reflect the fact that most of you are now running Engine 4 and that means you're all using the same basic code. Because of that, there's no good reason to have the discussion about Combat Mission spread out over 5 separate sets of Forums. There is now one General Discussion area with Tech Support and Scenario/Mod Tips sub forums. The Family specific Tech Support Forums have been moved to a new CM2 Archives area and frozen in place.
You might also notice we dropped the "x" from distinguishing between the first generation of CM games and the second. The "x" was reluctantly adopted back in 2005 or so because at the time we had the original three CM games on European store shelves entitled CM1, CM2, and CM3 (CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK). We didn't want to cause confusion so we added the "x". Time has moved on and we have to, so the "x" is now gone from our public vocabulary as it has been from our private vocabulary for quite a while already. Side note, Charles *NEVER* used the "x" so now we're all speaking the same language as him. Which is important since he is the one programming them

Lots of old warship pics (digitally colorized)

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There's much of interest at the link, with many ships I've never seen before. Naval grogs may suffer permanent sanity loss, and it's great to see many ships we read about as something other than flaming ruins. There's a vessel so old I wouldn't be shocked to learn it was inspired by the CSS Stonewall.

CSS Stonewall at Ferrol, Spain in 1865. Image Credit: Unknown

Turns out the ironclad ram it wasn't inspired by the above, it used to be the CSS Stonewall! The above is Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu, whose name means "ironclad."

She was the first ironclad ever in the Japanese Navy. Image Credit: Unknown

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For those who don't know, I thought I'd share a bit of a photographic history shocker. There is excellent quality original color photography from the Tsarist Period. How it was done is explained in the link. Unfortunately for us naval grogs, almost every single frame was shot inland.

The Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection features color photographic surveys of the vast Russian Empire made between ca. 1905 and 1915. Frequent subjects among the 2,607 distinct images include people, religious architecture, historic sites, industry and agriculture, public works construction, scenes along water and railway transportation routes, and views of villages and cities. An active photographer and scientist, Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook most of his ambitious color documentary project from 1909 to 1915. The Library of Congress purchased the collection from the photographer's sons in 1948.

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Wanted to note "lots" means pages and pages of photos, each with dozens of large format images. Have never seen anything quite like this. Certainly, barring a specialist work, such photos as these are not familiar at all. Jane's, Brassey's and such have nothing like this image size, that I recall. Also, though I posted a very old photo, most of the coverage is of IJN vessels of the WW II period imaged before the War. Thus, you can see the Yamato in her glory, the Japanese cruisers and destroyers which dominated the "Slot," floatplanes, etc.

One bit of nautical chrome I found fascinating is that she shared a scary design feature now believed to explain the famous/infamous sinking of the USS Maine. This was that the ammunition magazine shared a common bulkhead with the boiler room. This meant that a major fire there would rapidly heat the bulkhead, against which were stored powder bags. Saw this a few years ago on some TV documentary. Later battleships had cork insulation on the magazine side specifically to prevent this acute danger.

This is a charming, moving and informative video on the history of the last Dreadnought. Though there is some wrong footage, overall it's a pretty great video and is voiced by Lyle Lovett. Interestingly, the ship is 103, which is my computer's age in cyber years!

Er, no. Different ship. The USS Texas in SLIM's pic is an earlier one about the time of the Spanish-American War. After it was stricken from the active list, it was used as a target ship. Later the remains were scrapped due them being judged a hazard to navigation. You can read about it here:

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To whom it concerns: Peter Padfield's "Battleship" gives a very interesting overview of the development of battleships from the 1850's (ok, he even starts a little earlier with sailing ships in the 16th century, but touches the Age of Sail only briefly) to modern times. I found the book pretty amazing, but admit: The naval warfare between Trafalgar and WW1 always was a blind spot (with only very few highlights) for me. I never thought a book about such a dry topic could be so thrilling. I found it most interesting to read how many very different ideas and concepts had been developed, before the design of modern battleships emerged with the "Dreadnought" and what a race of competing technologies that was.

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Cool thread John. I visited the USS Olympia in Philadelphia last weekend (built 1893, the USS Maine's sister-ship and the main star of the Battle of Manila Bay). It is still a beauty.. but like the USS Texas is in need of repairs, especially at the waterline.

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Always wanted to see her, but I thought the whole ship was white. Believe the business about the uninsulated bulkhead between the boiler room and the magazine got ported to the USS Texas story from a sidebar examination the investigator did of the USS Olympia. I've read accounts of what a nightmare was for the crew on vessels of the period. For after the men knocked themselves out taking aboard the coal and getting it down to the bunkers, they then got to clean the ship stem to stern to remove all evidence the coaling ever occurred.

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Always wanted to see her, but I thought the whole ship was white. Believe the business about the uninsulated bulkhead between the boiler room and the magazine got ported to the USS Texas story from a sidebar examination the investigator did of the USS Olympia. I've read accounts of what a nightmare was for the crew on vessels of the period. For after the men knocked themselves out taking aboard the coal and getting it down to the bunkers, they then got to clean the ship stem to stern to remove all evidence the coaling ever occurred.

Regards,

John kettler

Period photos and paintings all show a darker upper structure, and the paintings show her with the same coloring as in my photo.

Yes I agree, the coal ships sound like a nightmare to work on, hundreds of pounds of coal ash would come up to the berthing deck constantly and have to be dumped overboard.. must have been very hard to keep equipment and yourself clean.

Of course I have been on many modern US Navy ships as well, and they all seem like horrors to work and live on... I'm glad I was Army.

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I can't recall what the first ship model I made was, [edit: It just came to me, when I was 7 or 8 I started but did not finish a small model of an LST in wood] but the first carrier was the USS Wasp CV-7 when I was 10 or 11. Later on I built the USS Shangri-La CV-38 (in the modernized version with the angled deck) and the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CV-42, also modernized with the angled deck. Among many model building projects, I built PT-Boats (both styles) destroyers, both light and heavy cruisers, battleships, and even an attack transport. Also a model of the USS Norton Sound AVM-1 experimental missile research ship.

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One thing you really notice is the different living standard for officers and sailors: wood-paneled, finely outfitted staterooms vs. hammocks slung around the guns and in the passageways.

Your comment reminded me to this 19th Century cartoon:

In case the text does not come out readable: The officer asks the sailor, why he is praying, if he even would be afraid of the enemy. The sailor answers, he would be praying that the bullets will be distributed exactly like the prize money....

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I wrote a post, which somehow disappeared, in response to the cartoon, which I'm guessing originally was in a much larger, therefore readable, format. In my response I fully supported the sailor's viewpoint on how prize money was divvied up, for his crack was solidly grounded in fact. Found this great study on the matter. It provides quite the education on the topic and is full of grog goodness. Pirates had written agreements on how the proceeds of a capture would be divided, and it was a model of fairness relative to the Royal Navy's, in my view cruel, approach.

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I wrote a post, which somehow disappeared, in response to the cartoon, which I'm guessing originally was in a much larger, therefore readable, format.

Yep, I found the cartoon in an old Time Life book, named "Age of Naval Warfare" or so and took a photo, which I had to reduce to this "microspot" size to be able to upload. If you want, I can send you a nicer (and readable) scan of it.

Re the prize money: Was it in the Royal Navy not "Half for the crew, half for the officers"?The Captain's share again being half of the officers share.

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Re the prize money: Was it in the Royal Navy not "Half for the crew, half for the officers"?The Captain's share again being half of the officers share.

Maybe, but I have this lingering ghost of a memory that it was half for the captain, a quarter for the officers, and a quarter for the crew. BTW, that may not be as inequitable as it sounds. There were some ship's expenses that might come out of the captain's share and the officers (including the captain) were normally expected to buy their own rations, uniforms, etc.